Split Ends
by bluewindranger
Summary: Right and wrong, it seems, are two distinct opposites. You do things the right way, or the bad way. Events in the Ninja Storm Rangers' lives, however, cause some of them to think otherwise...T for language. Centers around three core Wind Rangers and Cam. Chapter One is Shane and Tori and Chapter Two is Dustin and Cam.
1. Of Footsteps and Shadows

**A.N./** Just a series of little vignettes that I felt like writing...read, cry your eyes out, start typing in the review box, and fav. Love you guys.

This chapter features Shane and Tori.

* * *

_i: footsteps_

* * *

They want me to become someone important. Like, maybe a lawyer. The CEO of Microsoft. A businessman. The President of the United States. They want me to go on the "path to a bright future". "They", of course, meaning my family.

Hell, no. I, for one, know that if I become the U.S. President, the whole country would collapse within hours of my inaugaration. If not minutes, but I'm not sure if that's wholly possible, even for me.

Ha. I can't even lead my own Ranger team properly. The rest assure me that I'm doing fine, but I know I'm not. Like that time when we were only three, we went looking for a scroll in the middle of a desert. If I can't even get the three of us to _walk_ properly when our legs aren't even tied together, there is no way that I'm going to become a CEO. Let Simba become the Lion King. I certainly do not care.

But no matter how many times I try to explain to them, they just. Won't. Get it. And it irks the hell out of me. Especially Dad...well, only Dad and Porter, really. Dad's constantly pressuring me to follow Porter's successful footsteps. Not, I really don't want to end up like Porter. He makes a lot of money, sure, but as Tori once told me before clamming up and turning red—even though she had no reason to; I agreed with her whole-heartedly—Porter just doesn't seem really empathetic or...well, nice.

And yet, he wants me to be like him when I grow up. He tells me that I'm wasting my life away skateboarding, and the fact that I'm not paying attention to school will harm me in the future. He tells me that I wouldn't be helping the world in any way when I'm older.

The fuck? I am charged with leading the battle to save the world. What's Porter to talk about me not helping the planet? I'm helping it by trying to prevent a pot-bellied evil space ninja from blasting it to bits.

The "right path", my ass. It depends on how you look at it, because I'm fairly sure that if saving the world is the "wrong path" to take, we would have been dead about five thousand years ago.

Oh, if only Dad and Porter knew...think abou tlal the things I could say back to them...

...Or not. I mean, I get what they're trying to tell me; I really do. But I still can't help but to think resentfully, _Who are they to judge my "do's" and "nays"?_

Goddamn it. Sometimes, I just want to scream to the whole world that I'm the Red Wind Ranger. Then, we'll see who has the last laugh.

But I can't do that. Because I have to do what's right.

* * *

_ii: shadows_

* * *

If no one in the world fought with each other like cats and dogs, then there would be a whole lot less wars and arnarchy on the planet.

We're all living in the shadows, that's what. We've all done something that we regret in our lives, and if you say you didn't do _anything_ wrong, that you're a Little-Miss-Perfect—well, then, I know that you're lying. Everyone's guilty of _something_ that we lied about, whether it be stealing cookies from Grandma's kitchen, or causing two planes to crash into the World Trade Center. Although the latter wasn't really a lie, was it?

Me. Huh. Well, I'll bet you that I'm stuck in the shadows more than you will ever be. I'll never be able to crawl my way out of the shit that I had surrounded myself with...

The guys don't know a thing. I never told the incident to them. To them, I'm the "nice" and "logical" one. And I guess that's true, compared to some of the other numbskulls in the world, and trust me on this, but I wasn't always like that.

Nah, I was a cold-hearted bitch who didn't do a single thing to prevent my sister from committing suicide. Rather, I probably heralded it.

At that time, it seemed like the right thing to do. Don't intervene with the bullies, she can handle it by herself, it's all good.

God. Damn. It. I never actually listened to all that anti-bullying crap that Blue Bay Harbor High constantly campaigned for, but now, because of my freaking ignorance, I paid for it, big time.

The problem actually weren't the bullies at school, because I'm pretty sure it was mostly me...for one, my sister and I constantly argued about the pettiest things back at home, now that I actually think about it. I remember yelling at her once because she had just accidentally spilled milk all over my term paper, which just happened to be due the next day. I was up all night writing another one, muttering curses under my breath. Another time, I recall that my sister annoying me about homework and school and this and that, which, for some reason, drove me over to edge. I ended up calling her a goddamn bitch.

Yeah, _I'm_ the one who's a goddamn bitch.

October 11, 2000.

She was only twelve when she went to the pills.


	2. Of Covers and Regrets

**A.N./** Four words:

_**HURRICANE SANDY, YOU BITCH!**_

* * *

_iii: covers_

* * *

I'm the "airhead".

The goofball, the happy dude, the "everyone-gets-along" guy.

Per say, it wasn't easy making friends…

...But it isn't that hard, either.

Before ninja school, I didn't really interact with anyone at school. Keep my head down, walk inconspicuously past the giggling groups of the populars, just keep a low profile.

You can say that I was depressed.

Ah, look at me. I don't seem depressed, do I? Rather, everyone else seems to think that I need to keep my energy in, rather than out.

But covers can be deceiving. As Tori always oh-so-kindly reminds all of us boys.

Sometimes, I'm worried that, someday, she or any other Ninja Storm Ranger will see past my cover, my flimsy shield, into the true me that no one knows about.

It's okay to do that, right? Because I don't want Shane, or Tori, or Cam, or Hunter and Blake, hovering over me worriedly because I'm suddenly not the Dustin that they've known for half their lives…

...Well, her whole life, if you point at Tori. But even she doesn't know.

I'm insecure. (And, no, I am not making a reference to One Direction by saying that.)

The others, they're usually pretty glad to have me around, and as Cam once sarcastically pointed out, "You put a bright ray of sunshine into everyone's day, but you ruin mine." For whenever some of my "energy" is passed on to Shane and, occasionally, Tori, it ends up that Cam's computers are either: a.) Blown over with their screens cracked, b.) Sparking and completely wet, and/or c.) Both of the above.

It's a total front. I feel like I'm constantly breaking inside, and that funky business with Beevil and Marah didn't help.

No, nothing will ever help a broken family.

Shane and Tori know my dad, and they get along really well. Heck, I get along pretty good with my father and bro, who I really don't see because he's off getting a degree in mechanics at MIT or some other big-name college.

I don't even remember what college my brother is going to. My life is screwed up.

It was the god. Damn. Fuckin'. Divorce.

It broke me, even though having my mom at home was never really a good thing.

She drank. A lot. I remember that whenever I'd see her, she'd be tottering around all the place, hoarsely yelling at something that only she could see. I remember the slaps, the abuse, the yelling...

No.

I don't want to think about it. What was it that Sensei used to always say...?

_You are all stronger than your trials._

I'm stronger than my trials.

Well, if I'm stronger than my trials, than why am I lying to my life-long friends every single day?

Because breaking in front of them, showing them who I truly am would be wrong. It would ruin them.

So I keep up the front for the sake of my friends' contentedness with the way I am now, no matter how much of a lie it truly is.

* * *

_iv: regrets_

* * *

I get scared sometimes, from what I see in the other Rangers.

They're all keeping a secret. All of them. And to them, sometimes—I'm the grumpy techno geek who doesn't care about their being. Who does his own little thing off to the side. They became more open after I became the Green Ranger, but still...

They couldn't be more wrong. I care for them, I really do, and I feel like I have to see through the walls that they put up between themselves to uncover the truth.  
And when I do, it's pretty horrific on how they really feel about themselves.  
From what I truly see of the three Wind Rangers...

They are pretty damn good liars when they want to be. Shane, who's our Red Ranger, he shouldn't be lying to any one of us, Dustin, who doesn't seem like the type who could lie to someone if their life depended on it, and Tori, who claims that she couldn't lie to save her life (that, in itself, is a huge fib).

Shane. He's the big guy, the head honcho. He, out of all of us, should be the one who is the most stoic, the most confident, the most level-headed , the problem is...

...He sometimes just isn't very confident. Or level-headed. Or stoic, for the matter. He has an overbearing father and a successful brother at home. I feel for him, really. He wants so badly to live up to his brother's path, and he tries so hard to be a good leader, and I think that that's his problem. Shane has to be perfect—but the problem is, and even I know it: no one is perfect. If I didn't know better, I'd say that he has a mild case of OCD.

But , of course, he gets annoyed when others point his flaws out to him. Weirdly aggressive, in fact.

Dustin's goofy. He's the clown, and that's what makes him so likable to the other Rangers. He's the bouncing ball of optimism, never letting a small roadblock bar his way into "Dustin-land" or something, where everything's all happy, happy, happy...and motocross-y.

I don't know what, but Dustin has something he's hiding. (Like everyone else in the world.) He can't, and doesn't, act depressed. It isn't in his nature to be grouchy and dull. He won't act mean, either, so he chooses to be happy.

And that's good, but if Dustin doesn't break out with this secret of his, it's going to eat him from the inside out, and one day—I'm dreading that day—I'll hear a scream, because Dustin has just committed suicide. Or...something along those lines.

And Tori—oh, Tori...

The little—she's taller than her boyfriend, for god's sake; I wonder how Blake feels having to lean up to kiss her when they make out—blonde girl whom we are all overprotective of, because despite her protests and yells, she can't "defend herself".

Yeah, okay.

But she _is_ the logical, level-headed one, to use Shane and Dustin's terms. She's the heart of our team.

Oh, and she's tormented.

By what? No clue whatsoever. But like Dustin, something bad happened to her when she was younger, and that's shaped her whole life since. I can see it every time she walks and talks, always that slight drag (which is dispelled whenever Blake is around, though) that you wouldn't notice if you weren't looking closely, the often-sarcastic remarks that she makes.

She avoids pills. Is it the time of the month? She'll go without the Advil and deal with chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Is she sick? She'll have water and/or herbal medicine—in liquid form.

She becomes weirdly nice to anyone who's having a bad day, too. Did they just get dumped? She gravitates to your side. Like when Dustin got betrayed by Marah...

...Well, then again, neither Shane or her have completely forgiven Lothor's niece, but Dustin certainly has.

But anyways, it's the things that the Wind Rangers hide that scare me. I don't know the Thunders as well, but they're bound to have some secrets of their own. I know that I should probably talk to them about it, show them that I actually have a human side, and it's the right thing to do, but there's a reason they keep it hidden from the others. I don't really want to burst their bubbles.

But every single time I look at them, I have the inane urge to just blurt it out—tell them that I know, I'll listen, I want to help.

I don't, though, and everyday, I wake up wondering whether or not I made the right decision in letting them deal with this by themselves.

So...right or wrong?

I'll never be able to tell.


End file.
